Police are on red alert as the hook-handed Islamic cleric prepares to face 11 charges of murder, kidnapping and terrorism – in a US court just yards from the site of the main 9/11 attacks.

One-eyed Hamza, who was extradited to the US from Britain in 2012, will appear in court next week in New York, and the city’s authorities fear another al-Qaida attack to coincide with the trial.

Security services including the CIA are said to have picked up a high level of “internet chatter” among Islamic extremists.

Rebecca Weiner, security chief for the NYPD, said: “We are attuned to the possibility that his upcoming trial may inspire more terror.”

She called Hamza, 55, a “star” among jihadists and said he had “helped radicalise dozens of individuals in both the UK and the US who went on to engage in terrorist acts”.

“We are attuned to the possibility that his upcoming trial may inspire more terror”

Rebecca Weiner, security chief for the New York Police Department

And she highlighted the case of Lee Rigby killer Michael Adebolajo, 29, who demanded to be called Majahid Abu Hamza in honour of his extremist hero.

John Miller, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence also said officers in the city, where al-Qaida destroyed the Twin Towers in 2001, were on high alert but had yet to identify any “specific” threat.

Last month Hamza, 55, was branded a “terrorist leader of global reach” by the US government.

Prosecutors said he was so dangerous they wanted jurors to have armed guards.

Egyptian-born Hamza, who lost both hands and an eye fighting the Russians in Afghanistan in the 1980s, is to be tried under his real name Mustafa Kamel Mustafa.

Charges include hostage-taking and conspiracy to establish an al-Qaida training camp in the US.